Organized Crime

HARTFORD — Not many people would consider a 10-year prison sentence a solid career move. But William P. Grasso wasn't like most people. In 1968 he was running dice games and hustling street loans for Ralph "Whitey" Tropiano, a mafia soldier from New York who had returned to his old hometown, New Haven. They bought a garbage truck and planned to corner the suburban trash market. Always angry, even then, Grasso gathered together members of the Bridgeport Independent Refuse Collectors Association and, according to prosecution evidence, laid down the law: If you compete, we will "equip trucks with enough muscle and send them into Bridgeport." There will be...

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